Top 50 Songs of 2014 (10-1)

Like I said in Part 1, "no one list, no matter how massive, could do the year justice." While that may be true, I'd like to think this countdown has done a service to the year that was. 2014 in music was an unwieldy year and this has been an unwieldy list. Joyous Britpop, devastating dance, apocalyptic post rock, emo and serene ambient music have all made appearances and there's still room left. This list factored in commercial success, critical reception, replayability and listener resonance, and you see that in the final 10 songs. But before we get to the best 2014 had to offer, let's seen where we've been so far.


50. "Picture Me Gone"- Ariel Pink (pom pom)
49. "Blank Space"- Taylor Swift (1989)
48. "I'm Coming Home"- Lil Boosie (Life After Deathrow)
47. "Say You Love Me"- Jessie Ware (Tough Love)
46. "Man of the Year"- ScHoolboy Q (Oxymoron)
45. "New York Kiss"- Spoon (They Want My Soul)
44. "I Love You All"- The Soronprfbs (Frank soundtrack)
43. "Interference Fits"- Perfect Pussy (Say Yes to Love)
42. "Webbie Flow (U Like)"- Isaiah Rashad (Cilvia Demo)
41. "And I Am Nervous"- Shy Boys (Shy Boys)
40. "Never Catch Me" ft. Kendrick Lamar- Flying Lotus (You're Dead!)
39. "Tearing Down Posters"- Jawbreaker Reunion (Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club)
38. "Try Me"- DeJ Loaf (single)
37. "Queen"- Perfume Genius (Too Bright)
36. "No More"- Jeremih & Shlohmo (No More EP)
35. "Jackson"- Cymbals Eat Guitars (LOSE)
34. "Fancy" ft. Charli XCX- Iggy Azalea (The New Classic)
33. "Holding on for Life"- Broken Bells (After the Disco)
32. "Who Do You Love?" ft. Drake- YG (My Krazy Life)
31. "Have a Party"- MBE (DJ Moondawg's: We Invented the Bop 2)
30. "Call Across Rooms"- Grouper (Ruins)
29. "A Little God in My Hands"- Swans (To Be Kind)
28. "One Time For"- Rome Fortune (Prod. Four Tet) (Small VVorld)
27. "Magic"- Coldplay (Ghost Stories)
26. "Benz Friendz (Whatchutola)" ft. André 3000- Future (Honest)
25. "Silver Line"- Lykke Li (I Never Learn)
24. "Attachment"- Hannah Diamond (single)
23. "i"- Kendrick Lamar (single)
22. "Unf***theworld"- Angel Olsen (Burn Your Fire for No Witness)
21. "Digital Witness"- St. Vincent (St. Vincent) 
20. "Lookin' Ass N****"- Nicki Minaj (Young Money: Rise of an Empire)
19. "Kitchen Song"- Oscar (single)
18. "Can't Do Without You"- Caribou (Our Love)
17. "0-100/The Catch Up"- Drake (single)
16. "Words I Don't Remember"- How to Dress Well (What Is This Heart?)
15. "Talking Backwards"- Real Estate (Atlas)
14. "Close Your Eyes (And Count to F***)"- Run the Jewels (Run the Jewels 2)
13. "Water Fountain"- tUnE-yArDs (Nikki Nack)
12. "Eyes to the Wind"- The War on Drugs (Lost in the Dream)
11. "Aisatsana"- Aphex Twin (Syro)



10. "Move That Dope" ft. Pusha T, Pharrell & Casino- Future (Honest)

Cue the longest, loudest, most obnoxious Ric Flair "WOOOOOOO" imaginable. Plain and simple "Move That Dope" from Future's Honest is inspirational. Sitting through 6 minutes of Mike Will Made It's futuristic burbles, you're bound to chortle or nod your head to the track at least once.

More important than the hypnotic beat is the effort of Future's collaborators, who're all hell-bent on offering up better dope-game advice than the dude who just wrapped up. A surprisingly lucid (read: no Auto-tune) Future bounces from "beating that China like Kunta Kinte" to splashing scales with "baking soda water." Pusha T, never one to shy away from dope dealings, is stuck in a helpless dealer dichotomy "young enough to still sell dope, old enough to know better." As he admits near the end of his snarled verse, the only thing growing at the same rate as his age is his ego.

Ferocious as he is, King Push is mere table-setting for the final two. Pharrell comes alive with the sort of rapping he's rarely delivered since In My Mind: Mixtape. He fields questions about his Grammy outfit and squeezes in a session of naked yoga. 2014 ended up being a plentiful year for Pharrell and "Move That Dope" was the start of the harvest.

What the grizzled Casino reaps is the closest any of the rappers come to being "honest." Future's cousin is unrelenting in his approach, he bulldozes through "purp and zan" with Spartan intensity. And while "keep a 45 in my coat while I'm serving dope" scans as boilerplate gun-talk, when it comes in a weathered yowl it crosses from idle threat to guarantee. It's the one reality in a room full of vibrant fictions.

9. "West Coast"- Lana Del Rey (Ultraviolence)

There's no better way to describe Lana Del Rey's first single from sophomore LP Ultraviolence than "sensual." That said its sensuality is a better fit for the midnight hour. Black Keys-guitarist Dan Auerbach's hypnotic island groove to open "West Coast" turns a shade darker as Del Rey launches into her graveyard whisper. "Down on the West Coast, they got a sayin, if you're not drinkin', then you're not playin," she eerily philosophizes.

"Live fast and die young" has been an ideology of Del Rey's music since the beginning, but with the exception of the elegiac "Carmen" the dark-end of the tunnel has never seemed so close. Del Rey steps out onto balconies of rippling guitars and stuttering drum fills in the hook of "West Coast", but instead of stopping to enjoy the scenery she wildly proclaims "I'm in love." She's far too preoccupied with Golden-Age Cinema and "Rock N Roll groupies" to notice the flames climbing higher by the minute. By the time the vague chopped-and-screwed outro enters with a gloomy synth in hand, her fate is sealed. Living for the moment is fine until the future becomes the present.

8. "Do It Again"- Robyn & Röyksopp (Do It Again EP)

Not since Daft Punk's iconic "One More Time" has the desire to keep losing control been so perfectly captured within a pop framework. I want more of "Do It Again" before the dancefloor burner can wrap up. Hit me again with Röyksopp's pliable bass. Let those synthesizers forever wobble back and forth like a house on a cliff. Don't lose sight of the thudding metronomes. Never stop the beat that pulsates like a nervous heart. Whatever Robyn coolly hits you with, have her say it again. Whenever one massive buildup collapses, wait around for the next one. If it feels like an eternity, have patience. If you stay around, we'll just do it again and again and again.

7. "Micheline"- Sun Kil Moon (Benji)

Mark Kozelek's sixth studio album as Sun Kil Moon, Benji, is a towering and exhausting record. For much of the record's 62 minute run time death is the topic of conversation. We hear about the deaths of cousins and uncles from trashcan fire explosions. In "Pray for Newtown" Kozelek meditates on mass shootings in Newtown, Aurora, San Ysidro, Portland, and Oslo. Serial killer Richard Ramirez is the subject of an entire song. A husband is lead to mercy kill his wife and spends the rest of his life in prison. When you listen through Benji it's nearly impossible not to get teary-eyed because there's so much death. Loss of life is rarely easy to accept.

The album's most affecting story though has nothing to do with death. Tenderly picking a nylon-stringed guitar Kozelek tells us all about his childhood admirer "Micheline" who "wore thick-rimmed glasses" and had a brain that "worked a little slower than the others." When she felt particularly brave, Micheline would knock on Kozelek's door and ask his father "Can I take a bath with Mark?" He would politely respond that his son wasn't home and shut the door to send Micheline on her way. There's no judgment in the way Kozelek tells the story, just an unlimited reserve of empathy. "She wanted love like anyone else," he warbles. He doesn’t stop at a simplistic reduction of someone who is mentally challenged being “different,” he dares to include her by singing "she had dreams like anyone else."

While Kozelek goes on to tell of a friend who suffered an aneurysm during band practice and a cancer-stricken grandmother, it's that first tale of the sparse number that hits the hardest. In that same story Kozelek fast-forwards to the time a neighborhood thug moved in with Micheline to took her welfare payments and life savings. You can hear him inhale when he recounts that journalistically specific detail and in that quietude a breakdown inevitably comes. We're trained to believe that the most "defenseless" among us will be protected, but "Micheline"'s story says otherwise. Those who have no real voice are taken advantage of. When that happens we need to do what Kozelek does and give them a voice. Ensure that their dreams matter as much as anyone else's.

6. "I'm Not Part of Me"- Cloud Nothings (Here and Nowhere Else)

The memories we make are as a part of us as anything else. That's the central tension of "I'm Not Part of Me," 2014's greatest "RAWKER" by a mile. Lead-singer Dylan Baldi's gnarled plan to "leave all the memories of what we did when we were young," is doomed to fail because we are our recollections. We can't forget painful events at our convenience, try as we might. Our best chance to survive is to move towards new experiences, barreling forward with the power of Jayson Gerycz's drums. To rip out those troublesome parts we need nails as sharp as Baldi's shouted choruses: "I'm not, I'm not you, you're a part of," "I'm not telling you all I'm going through, I feel fine." We can move on from the way we were before, we just need to forget the past and focus on what we can control. More than an expertly made rock song, "I'm Not Part of Me" is a therapy session with expert hooks.

  

5. "Sanctified" ft. Betty Wright, Big Sean  Kanye West- Rick Ross (Mastermind)

We could all be forgiven for thinking 2014 was going to be another year of musical dominance for Kanye West. He'd been a major part of a record release every year since the decade started, so when the gorgeous "gospel rap" track "Sanctified" appeared in early February there was every reason to believe it was business as usual. That wasn't the case. In reality "Sanctified" was the shimmering oasis in a desertous year. Our one morsel while we wait for "another Yeezus."

It doesn't really matter though because "Sanctified" is such a towering, opulent single. Big Sean raps about wanting "$100 million" in the infectious hook and it sounds like that amount went into the West/DJ Mustard/Mike Dean production. Rather than sample Betty Wright, the trio brought the R&B singer in to soulfully howl about being "sanctified" as a church organ cleanly pipes away. Underneath her you can hear every drum kick and bass thunk; the saved holding hands with the sinners.

So it is with the verses, particularly 'Ye's where he's "wildin' out" and washing his sins "in the blood of Jesus." He outright jacks the "Migos flow" at one point and it's impossible to complain because he sounds so good going into double-time atop a plinking grand piano. "I don't sweat it, wipe my forehead with a handkerchief" he raps on the other side, intentionally butchering the word "handkerchief" to the point of being unrecognizable. Rick Ross can have his "grilled cheese" as much as he wants; this is all about Mr. West. He's continually inventing his own language and I can't wait to hear what he says next.

4. "Seasons (Waiting On You)"- Future Islands (Singles)

 

As memeable and GIF-worthy as vocalist Samuel T. Herring of Future Islands dancing around The Late Show was, the success of "Seasons (Waiting On You)" doesn't happen if it isn't a flat-out incredible song. The strutting is an oddity story for a day or two, the song is one of those undefinable, indescribable works that people perpetually return to to figure out. Are we dealing with dance music? Does Gerrit Welmers' restrained, yet wonky, keyboard playing make this synthpop? William Cashion's chugging bass brings to mind vintage-Strokes, so maybe garage rock's the comparison?

Fine then, we've figured the music out? What about Herring's singing? There are the guttural hollers of Tom Waits in his voice, but also the operatic clarion of Antony Hegarty as he wails "As it breaks the summer will wake, but the winter will wash what is left of the taste." What he's saying is abundantly clear, we'll have to wait indefinitely for some people because humans don't naturally change their minds or hearts the way seasons turn over. Holding a torch for someone for too long can burn. How Herring is saying all of that though is the real mystery and it won't be solved anytime soon, so we'll keep hanging on.

3. "Do You"- Spoon (They Want My Soul)

 

One of the best measures of greatness for a band is their ability to make the difficult look easy, to have listeners vacillating between "I could do that" and "how did they do that?" Using that standard, Spoon are America's greatest rock band. Just listen to the "do do do's" that open up They Want My Soul's catchy anchor "Do You." That's a simple little "gimmick" that's been in popular music since the beginning, but the way Spoon does it defies reproduction. Each one bounces and echoes around every corner of the speaker, buried under gobs of reverb and delay effects. Jim Eno plays maybe one drum fill the entire song and it still stands feels like a commanding performance because of the way he hammers at his kit. The brief little electric guitar solo that Britt Daniel's performs would take forever to tab because of the way it interlocks with the shuffling acoustics. The way they play is a perfect fit for a song that centers around romantic understanding. Spoon know who they are and what they're doing. 

2. "Two Weeks"- FKA twigs (LP1)

 

Darkly sexual or sexually dark. Take your pick with FKA twigs' druggy trip-hop/R&B hybrid "Two Weeks" because either is accurate. Even before twigs delivers the year's most overt come-on with "my thighs are apart for when you're ready to breathe in," it's never clear if you should be terrified or turned on. The hairs that stand up on the back of your neck could be from the line or the decaying electronics that undergird it. It could be a vibrant dream or a bleak nightmare. The way twigs' material can go either way is impressive, but not as much as her ability to take control while being so utterly calm. It recalls no less than Aaliyah, but R&B's "baby girl" never sounded this liberated or skin crawling. Twigs is in another lane altogether, she owns it and she owns you. So get you're mouth open.

 

 

1. "Tuesday" ft. Drake- iLoveMakonnen (I Love Makonnen)

 



















"Put the world on a sound," that's precisely what Drake the tastemaker did when he hopped on iLoveMakonnen's "Club Goin' Up on a Tuesday" in August. It's impossible to overstate how important Drizzy hopping on this joint was. The original was already catchy, those constantly rewinding synths and inebriated synths are hard not to sway to, but the initial song was one of those cult pieces that only music nerds are talking about five years later. Drake's cosign let everyone know it was okay to like this something inherently weird and helped launch it into the stratosphere. He turned us on to an Atlanta eccentric who counts Adele and Lil B as inspirations. We were given a guy who croons like the Smiths' Morrissey if he got his start 20 years later and listened to 808s & Heartbreak nonstop. Here was someone so committed to having a good time that he was going to celebrate on the most ho-hum day of the week. His infectious attitude was something everyone within reach was going to catch. Sure his eyes were bloodshot from graveyard shifts and slinging molly, but that wasn't going to stop him. When we look back on 2014 we're going to think how unstoppable "Tuesday" was.

(Regular features on the blog return tomorrow. If you love the songs included, say so in the comments. If you hate them and have nothing but righteous indignation for the countdown, express that to.)

In Revue- 'They Want My Soul' (Spoon)

I've listened through Spoon's They Want My Soul at least 12 times since the Austin quintet's eighth studio LP was made available for streaming last Monday. Part of that is a requirement for writing a review. I have to know what I'm talking about and the easiest way to gain that knowledge is to absorb as much of the music as possible. Also I've hit a dozen because Spoon's studio trickery demands repeat listening. It's true that any good to great record will have you finding new wrinkles with each listen, but with Spoon it's an ironclad law. No way could you hear every double tracked vocal or bass hiccup in one pass. Finally I'm into double digits with They Want My Soul because it's a terrific record. In the course of a scant 37 minutes it creates a world that I could live in forever and never grow bored of.

It's been four years since the indie stalwarts released the slowly revealing Transference, and from the sounds of They Want My Soul Spoon spent all of the 2 million plus minutes stripping the record down to its essentials. Never mind that lead singer Britt Daniel started "super group" the Divine Fits or the band was called up to the big leagues for a second time, when you play They Want My Soul you picture the band huddling around a soundboard and fiddling with knobs for hours on end. "We lived in the studio, I mean we stayed in the studio," Daniel told NPR's Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton about their time working with Flaming Lips cohort Dave Fridmann. Splitting duties with U2/Elton John/Beck/Shins engineer/producer Joe Chiccarelli, Fridmann and the industry vet took Bruce Springsteen's "four corners approach" and created rock that's as thrilling with headphones pressed to your ears as it is blasting out of speakers.

Opener "Rent I Pay" belongs to the latter variety. Gut shots from drummer Jim Eno are the first thing we hear on the record, followed closely by a jangled guitar. Britt Daniel is remarkably measured thanks to piping organ that eases the tension and allows him to casually shrug his shoulders as he takes his lumps. "That's the rent I pay," he constantly growls. There isn't any disappointment or fatigue hiding in his voice; he knows the score before he begins playing. That eyes wide open acceptance and rock swagger is replicated in title track "They Want My Soul," as Daniel is wholly aware of his enemies. The song deals in the same subject matter as Springsteen's "It's So Hard to Be a Saint in the City" where everyone's preying on the idealistic individual. Daniel is more forgiving than the Boss though, rattling off the "card sharks" and "socialites" who want his soul without disdain. When Daniel gets self-referential and comes across the foul "Jonathon Fisk," he avoids hostility. In 2002 when Fisk first appeared on Kill the Moonlight, Daniel felt oppressed by the former bully. Now there's a hint of sympathy when he yelps "Jonathon Fisk still wants my soul," atop Eno's steady beat and Eric Harvey's lithe tambourine shakes. So what if those around him haven't grown up? The 43-year-old Daniel has and he wants the past left alone. 

There's a reason though that acceptance is the final stage in the five stages of grief; it's the hardest. For much of They Want My Soul Britt Daniel wanders around lost in the woods of the first four. "Inside Out" is one of the dreamiest numbers Spoon has ever attempted. Synthesizer knobs are slowly faded up and down throughout the song and what sound like plucked harp notes glide over metronomic drum machine hits, but Daniel is uneasy.  You can hear jitters as he croons "I don't make time for holy rollers, it's only you I need, they do not make me complete." With such a fragile voice you know no one can make him whole. 

Rightfully this waltzing between denial and depression crests with "side one" closer "Knock Knock Knock." Massive "dulled" drum strikes jockey for position against a steely-eyed acoustic guitar. You can picture Daniel in the middle of a torn up auditorium stage with the lights off, gazing at the floor and lamenting "all lines are read, the film is done." Sea shanty whistling and possible dabs of Fender Rhodes tease Daniel with a ray of light before string scraping out of Public Image Ltd.'s "Albatross" swallows him up. "Every time I hear knock knock knock, I know that it's you," he horrifyingly declares. There's no reason to get up and answer the door because the same disappointment is lurking behind it.

Side two opener "Outlier" resigns further into defeat; effectively bucking the trend of the four corners approach where the side openers bolt out of the gate. Retrograde keyboards add dark ambiance to the track and Jim Eno's lack of drum fills only heightens the tension. "You were smart, you played no part. You just thought, what you thought. And I remember when, you walked out of Garden State (cause) you had taste you had taste, you had no time to waste. Oh what happened to you kid?" Daniel soberly wonders aloud. The Garden State line has garnered a bit of "controversy," but worrying about it misses the forest for the trees. Not unlike Arcade Fire's frantic "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)," "Outlier" captures someone pinning their hopes for success on an idol. While the Funeral character prayed his older brother Alexander could make it on his own, Daniel's tightly crossing his fingers for a friend to clear a path. I know I've done the same. In high school I watched older friends of mine head off to college and I expected them to magically figure everything out. When they didn't, when their stories sounded just as confused as mine, I started to panic.

Disillusionment comes in many forms and They Want My Soul's final two tracks examine how romantic relationships can fan the flames. For a split second the acoustic tinkering in "Let Me Be Mine" recalls "Wish You Were Here," if the Pink Floyd staple was more spirituous. Rob Pope's bass is at its most powerful here, giving the song an arena rock strut while Britt Daniel is sitting in a dingy room half-heartedly promising "auction off what you love, it'll come back some time." As the words leave his lips you know it’s not true. There's no guarantee you'll ever get back what you set free. Daniel knows it’s a lie when he rattles, "go ahead and take another chunk of me with you when you go." The line is the "it’s better to burn out than fade away," for romantic relationships circa 2014. As connected as we are, clean breaks can’t exist anymore. Love is shipped off by piecemeal. First to go will be the late night texts or Snapchats. And then the wall posts or DM's on Twitter. You may never actually work up the nerve to hit block or unfriend, so they'll be like the star you notice in the night sky. They exist, but they're so far off you can never get to them. You'll still think about them, an echoed Daniel is "still thinking about it," like something out of Kanye West's "Blame Game." However everything will be in the past. New memories won't be made. 

Stunning closer "New York Kiss" is the final memory, its Jim Carrey walking around the decayed beach house with Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Gently clanking xylophone and uncharacteristic synth from the earthy band paint a striking scene of downtown New York where no one is around. "It's just another place to place your memory on," as Daniel puts it in the chorus. It's no longer a real location, but a dramatic setting for heartbreak. Faded neon signs point towards the "golden years" when the shouts were off in the distance. There's a fleeting moment of triumph when the music calms and Daniel whines "there ain't a thing I miss," though the glory is dashed when he finishes "quite like your New York kiss." We all have that one memory that clings to us like a leech that we'll never be able to shake. Daniel's is an impassioned kiss in the middle of the night. 

More than its relational relevancy, the greatest success of They Want My Soul is that even relative miscues are compelling. Eerie keyboard work in "Rainy Taxi" makes Britt Daniel's "I came home last night, I had no good news," alluring despite his signature rasp being pushed to the background. "I Just Don't Understand" is an unnecessary cover of the Ann Margaret tune, though the barrelhouse piano will have you swaying along. A great way to tell if a hip hop producer is worth anything is to take away the rapping and see if the music holds up by itself. If you could listen to a beat tape of their work and find it equally rewarding, they're a talented producer. So it is with Spoon. I love Daniel's voice and his enigmatic lines, but if Spoon was an instrumental unit I'd still be wearing this album thin.

I'm frankly amazed my file of "Do You" hasn't been corrupted with the number of plays it has racked up. The album's second single is already a worthy advisory for "The Underdog" as Spoon's finest pop moment. "Do You"'s acoustic shuffle is kin to the Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga opus but everything else is far more atmospheric. Falsetto "doo doo doos" float in the background. Crisp cymbal washes in the chorus don't fully recede, they disappear. Distended yowls from Britt Daniel traipse around without really being heard. When he sings "it's late in October, tar's still melting in the street," it may as well be "guitars still melting in the street" the way his briefing soloing hits the ear before the verse begins. "That's the way love comes," Daniel informs us. When wispy keys from new member Alex Fischel and Eric Harvey carry the song off into an uncertain night, we see what Daniel means. Love never arrives the way we expect it to. It pops up at odd times and at odd places. It's wonderfully comforting and strange all at once. Not unlike Spoon.

"Do You"

They Want My Soul drops Tuesday through Republic/Loma Vista.